One Last Dance
by Lisa Telramor
Summary: Fakir has finally written Ahiru human again, but the magic can only last until midnight.


_AN: For the commentfic prompt: any. any. The magic only lasts until midnight._

~0~O~0~

Fakir holds her hand as they dance. There's no music here, just trees and grass by her lake and the dock that Fakir spends half his time reading or fishing at. Ahiru can't help but laugh with the joy of it. Fakir is as graceful as ever, and she hasn't danced in years, so she's more clumsy than not, but it's a beautiful moment.

Ahiru twirls, old memories syncing up to the moment, and lets Fakir tip her backward into a dip. Her body will be feeling this tomorrow. Her muscles haven't been used like this in far too long. They've both grown up, Fakir taller and broader though he still had the leaner muscle of a dancer. He has more smile lines around his eyes and his hands are perpetually ink stained along with the end of his ponytail where it will slither from his shoulder into whatever he's writing at the moment. Ahiru is still short, far less fit and trim than she used to be—she blames Fakir and how he will bring her delicious, terribly unhealthy things to peck at when he visits. He doesn't seem to mind the changes though, not any more than she has minded watching him age. There is a strange sort of intimacy in knowing how someone looked over half a decade ago.

Fakir turns and Ahiru stumbles, caught against his chest. He laughs, but it isn't cruel laughter. It's warm and happy. "You haven't changed," he says.

She can't help but blush. "I was going to say that you've changed, but with that kind of comment, maybe you haven't."

"I have," he says, keeping them dancing close. "For the better I would hope. You were part of what made me change."

"I know." She has watched him all these years, watched him and cared for him. But she has been a duck with a duck's life, and it is easier to be content with being a duck than to hold on to what she'd been for her brief time as a human. "Thank you for staying with me."

"I promised, didn't I?" he says.

Years and years of wishes hang heavy between them. Wishes, no matter how strong, couldn't change that she is a duck and Tutu's story has been told to its end.

They dance until the moon is high and their breath comes short because neither of them gets the exercise they once did. They come to a stop at the dockside, hand in hand, breaths mingling together.

"Ahiru," Fakir says, "I—"

"I know," she says before he can say anything more out loud. She doesn't need to hear him say the words. He's been saying them in his own way every day that he spends with her when he could be spending it doing any number of other things.

He has tried and tried and tried to write her a happy end like he has written so many other endings. Ahiru isn't sure he quite understands that she has been happy. She is happy to be with him, to have the cool water of her pond and the food in it. She is happy to have once been Princess Tutu and to have seen Rue and Mytho reach their happiness. In the end he's written this; one dance, one night, together as humans for the moment.

She leans up and kisses him on the cheek. He turns red like he did when she changed human earlier and like years before when her body changed back and forth. "Thank you," she says again. "You don't need to write for me anymore."

For the first time that evening, Fakir frowns, and she chases that expression away with another kiss, this one to his forehead, pulling him down to her level.

"I'm happy," she says. "I don't need a human body or another duck. I don't need another fairytale role. I'm happy like this. Here, with you."

"Oh." Fakir tightens his arms around her. His head rests on her shoulder and she returns his hug because she can. There are things she has missed about being human, this being one of them, but she knows that she isn't meant to be human in the end. "I'm happiest here too."

"I'm glad." A strong breeze whipped through, sending ripples across the lake. In Fakir's arms is a duck half tangled in a dress.

He half laughs as he helps untangle fabric from wings and webbed feet. Ahiru puffs her feathers at him when he sets her down still smiling at how her feathers are ruffled. "I guess it must be midnight," he murmurs. He strokes the sleek line of her neck and Ahiru lets her feathers settle to lean into the touch.

One night of magic, broken at midnight. Magic cost less when it had an end in sight. It took readily when there were roles to fill as well. Fakir sighs. He'd hoped—but he knows by now that this is all they can have together, perhaps more similarly stolen moments for as many years as they have together.

Ahiru quacks and waddles into his arms. She is happy. This is all he has wanted for years. If she is happy, Fakir knows he can be as well.


End file.
